Difference Between f5 vm and Hardware

Here's my list of what is not in VE;

•CMP (until v11.3) •Spanning Tree Protocols (vSwitches don’t run STP; interestingly it’s also not supported on the 2000s, 2200s, 4000s or 4200v hardware platforms) •Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP) – but Trunking is still available •The hard-wired failover functionality and interface •Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 140-2 compliance (specific hardware is required) •Interface mirroring •The Serial console interface •Always On Management (AOM) •Use of more than 4Gb of memory (until v11.3) •Throughput of more than 1Gb (until…???) •There may be downgrade restrictions depending on your hypervisor. •Link Controller (LC) •Advanced SSL functions •Advanced TCP profile settings

Also I'd suggest you do some research on SR-IOV, LRO and TSO, where the host's NICs are concerned.

Its obvious but worth stating you lose all hardware acceleration and assistance for traffic (except: see above line) and SSL processing.

You may be able to mitigate this in some ways as I suggest above and by using processors that support the Advanced Encryption Standard Instruction Set and ensuring its use is enabled/supported in your hypervisor of choice.

Expect things to improve on the processor front rapidly.